


Tomorrow's Song

by AutumnHarnett



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cabaret, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Art, Artist Finn, Belle Epoque, Eventual Smut, F/M, Historical Fantasy, Magician Kylo, Nudity, Rey as a cabaret performer, Rose is too good for this world, There are tits in the first chapter but don't get excited, Turn of the Century, alternative universe, fin de siecle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-17 00:23:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13647504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnHarnett/pseuds/AutumnHarnett
Summary: Turn of the Century Reylo AU! (Very loosely based on Moulin Rouge... with fantasy elements!) Eventual smut! It's the AU no one wants or asked for! Secondary Finnrose. Tertiary Gingerpilot.Coruscant is at the turn of the century, on the precipice of change as the New Republic and First Order struggle to maintain hold over the city. It is a time of art, entertainment, and prosperity! …for those in the positions of power and class to reap the benefits of this momentary peace that the New Republic has brought. For those in the slums, they continue to struggle to get by.When the hunt for his old master comes to another dead-end, Kylo Ren is drawn to a advertisement that promises entertainment at a cabaret, The Castle. What he wants isn't to be entertained. It's to investigate the familiar face on the poster belonging to the lovely headliner, Rey.





	1. Ribbons of Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo… I know I have one-ish fics unfinished and in process… (should I count Doves Have Flown? No one read it, so I’m leaving that as “one shot.”) BUT! I really, really wanted this fic. 
> 
> It’s based off of Paris at the turn of the century, a historical AU where magic is a-flowing and connecting our dear Kylo and Rey. Kylo, a practicing magician under Snoke, and Rey, a courtesan and performer at Maz’s Castle, a cabaret.
> 
> It is a time of art, entertainment, and prosperity! …for those in the positions of power and class to reap the benefits of this momentary peace that the New Republic has brought. For those in the slums, they continue to struggle to get by.  
> This is inspired by Moulin Rouge, but due to the fact that I don’t just want to retype the plot of Moulin Rouge with a few names switched around, we’ll be having a little bit of fun with Coruscant standing in as Paris during fin de siècle. … with magic because I’m a whore for fantasy elements. 
> 
> Like Moulin Rouge, I will be stealing songs instead of composing my own for Rey’s cabaret scenes… because this is supposed to be fun, guys. We’re all havin’ fun. This chapter I used "With You" from Pippin.

 

 

* * *

 

“I haven’t seen your uncle in years, young _Solo_ —”

The old man’s tone held no kindness, using the name as a shield to shake him. As if that, perhaps, if he held his past aloft for him to face, it would bring him sympathy. What he didn’t know is that the man he was searching for had taken any chance that he would yield.

With a rough squeeze of his gloved hand, Kylo Ren had balled his fist in the air. The man, Lor San Tekka, choked for air as he met his cold gaze with his own, remaining unwavering as he struggled in his unseen grip. As he stood there, he could feel the tendrils of his magic ripple from him, pressing at the man’s throat and probing into his thoughts.

_Truth…_

As he searched the halls of his mind, darting through the passages of the elderly man’s memories, he found nothing. No sign of the man he searched for. Rage boiled as he gave the man’s throat another harsh crush, watching him struggle for a long moment before Tekka went completely limp. Dropping him, a harsh grunt escaped him as he looked down at the old man, his dark eyes wary. On the ground, he was shallowly breathing, staring up at Kylo as if he were trying to understand what had just happened. As it was, no proper inspector would look at the man and suspect foul play. Elderly and brittle, Lor San Tekka would be considered a pathetic old man who had died alone in a dirty alley that he’d designed, struck by a heart attack.

“Ben…” he wheezed one last shattered gasp before he went still. 

“Another dead end, Ren?” Armitage Hux called coyly from behind. He approached him, his suit impeccably pressed, his steps long and rhythmic, his hands folded behind him.  A cool sneer lit up his pale face from underneath a shock of perfectly slicked ginger hair. “Your leads keep turning out no information. What use is magic if it doesn’t further our investigation?”

“We’re close,” he insisted as he turned from the body as he walked hurriedly down the dark alley, walking towards the dim light of the lamps that lit the main streets of Coruscant. The pristine buildings of the newly widened street were stark in comparison of the back alley they had just left.

The New Republic had promised reconstruction, but the slums were still in shambles. They had taken the narrow roads of the old city and expanded them, beautifying the face of the city while the soul remained as corrupted as it had been. If anything, they had pushed the scum of the city further back, packing them even tighter together. It was all a powder keg waiting for someone to light the fuse.

“I can feel it. My uncle can’t hide for much longer.” As the sound of his voice hit the air, he flinched at how shaken he sounded. _Young Solo… Ben…_ The closer they got to the elusive old wizard, the more he saw of the past.

“That’s what you said last time and the time before,” Hux argued as he kept up with his hurried pace. A series of red herrings had lead him astray, no doubt planted by his uncle to throw him off the trail every time he had gotten close. This time, especially, had been fruitless. He’d ended up with nothing but a dead old architect.

Despite the failures that he spoke of, he didn’t sound worried or angry. Instead, his words dripped with eagerness. No doubt, he was eager to see what the response would be from their master. He grew tense at the thought.

“Snoke won’t be pleased,” he sighed. “You keep making promises that you can’t keep, Ren.”

“I know how close I am this time,” he bit out. He didn’t. Every time he thought he had a lead, he had thought that it would lead to the end of their investigation. They would take Skywalker into their custody and it would be over. Even in that moment, the feeling that he was close to a break was vague at best a twist in his gut.

As he turned the corner once more, he faltered to a stop as a dull sensation struck him. Glancing around, he half-expected to see his uncle on the street, ready finally for their long-awaited confrontation. He found that instead he was face to face with a poster for a burlesque.

His eyes traced on the face of the woman on the lithograph, her sweet lips pulled into a darling smile, her expression beckoning with a come-hither glance. She leaned back on a swing, her slender legs fully extended as she sat under elaborate print that read: “The Castle, a grand spectacle! Meet our Rey of Sunshine from the far reaches of Jakku!”

It wasn’t what the poster promised that he froze him in that spot, tracing over her face again and again with a fevered gaze. Kylo was a man who didn’t go to night clubs, who couldn’t be bothered to spend the night at a cabaret. He had spent his days studying to become stronger, training in his magic, and now, acting as a well-trained hound hunting an evasive fox.

This woman, though, he had seen her before. As he looked over her face one last time, it struck him. He _knew_ her.  

“Oh, yes, _whores_ ,” Hux drawled sarcastically. “That’s what will solve your inability to do your job. Paying for a night—”

Before Hux could finish his remark, Kylo reached up to rip the poster from the wall where it had been plastered with gloved hand before hurrying down the street with purpose in his step.

 

* * *

 

“Are you finished?” Leaning back on a pile of blankets, Rey gave an exasperated sigh as she dared to peek in the artist’s direction as he continued to scribble away in his pad of paper. It had been nearly two hours since she had settled down for a quick session. By quick, she had assumed that he had meant at most a thirty-minute study, but as the minutes ticked on into two hours, she had realized that he had gotten fixated on the pose.

Frozen, she rested her head against a propped arm while the other laid across the slight curves of her waist. Her arm had begun to cramp, her fingers numb from the way he had her settle.

In one of the back rooms of Maz Kanata’s beloved Castle, they had set up a small studio with the gracious madam’s permission.

The Castle was a grand music hall, a night club of sorts filled with entertainment in both the front and, if the money was right, private shows for those who had the cash to toss around. They dealt with both old and new money; dukes with gold long held by their fathers and their fathers’ fathers as well as the lucky men who had put their money in with the industrial boom they had just begun to see as Coruscant lurched into the new century.

The streets of the city had been widened and revamped, sweeping out the slums, pushing those who had nothing closer together, and forcing them to struggle a little more, to hide from the shining walls of the city.

Those who entered into the Castle were the face of Coruscant, all glittering and gold, coming to visit the underworld that they had pushed into the gutters so they could have their new age of beauty. While they had no qualms about spending an evening in the Castle, rejoicing in their colorfully depraved world to escape their own existence in polite society just for a while, all to ready to sweep them from the streets once morning light broke once more.

Maz didn’t discern when it came to money, and if she were being honest, neither did Rey. She knew what it was like to be hungry and desperate, and she had vowed that she would never go back to anxiety of wondering where her next meal would come or what lengths she would have to do go get it.

“Finn?” she tried once more to get his attention to no avail. Blinking her hazel eyes in annoyance, she heaved a heavy sigh as she quickly shifted legs while he took another glance at his drawing. Rey cleared her throat, stretching her toes. As the evening came ever closer, she doubted that the woman would want one of her precious backrooms used as an artist’s retreat once there was entertaining to do and money to make.  

His eyes were far from her question, focused as he glanced between her and his pad of paper, seeing her body while not truly seeing _her_. Within moments of disrobing, he had disconnected from her as a person, easily slipping them into the role of artist and subject. Bare as the day she was born, she acted as the young man’s model, sprawled in a reclined position as she fought the urge to gather one of the rich blankets piled beneath her. 

Finn was a fine artist, though he had been a starving one when they had first met. Dressed in an old suit, poorly fashioned and ill-fitting, he had wandered into the alley behind the cabaret, carefully collecting rainwater from the gutters when Rey had found him. His hands, dark umber, had been collecting a trickle of water. He’d hardly waited for his hands to fill before raising the cool rain to his lips, swallowing what should have been a sip of water in an eager gulp before raising his hands to the sky for more.

She had been standing in the alley, eyes closed as she let the rain drench her skin, trying to shock a nightmare that clung to her mind from her. It had already fled from her, the memory of what she had dreamt, but she found herself still trembling at what was already forgotten. Tears and sweat mixed with the downpour, washing away the signs of her weakness.

It had only been the sound of him choking that had shaken it away, her attention swaying to the bizarre stranger. Staring at each other for a long moment, she had ambled towards him as he held his breath as if that would solve the issue that was his inability to breathe. With a wheeze, he doubled forward and the coughing commenced. Rey began to beat his back with her fist, forcing him to stand straight with her other arm until he managed to take in a shaking breath.

“What are you doing out here?” she had asked.

“I could ask you the same.”

Neither pressed for answers as they made a silent agreement to let their reasons go unspoken for the time being, but Rey had taken him out of the rain and they had started their friendship over a kettle of hot tea.

That night had been three months prior. He was still shabbily dressed, wearing clothes that were secondhand from a friend and haphazardly patched despite the fact that he was making a steady stream income based on commissions. Instead of scrounging in the back alleys for water, he painted for Maz, creating the posters and prints for her Castle to draw the crowds in. Although Rey thought that they hardly needed any advertisement, she had been happy to become somewhat of a muse for him, her face lining the streets of Coruscant on his prints.   

“Did you move?” he blinked, dark eyes glancing between the page of paper and her form frantically, lifting his stylus in the air as he angled it carefully to compare her and the drawing. She stretched her toes once more. “The way I took down your legs…”

“Finn, I have a performance in nearly thirty minutes,” Rey sighed as she sat up, reaching for her silk oriental print robe before getting to her feet. “And while the throng of gentlemen out there would love for me to descend from the rafters nude, I rather not.”

She looked down at the charcoal drawing, frowning softly.

“I’m not that flat,” she complained quietly as she looked at her chest, tying her robe a touch tighter with one hand as she pushed a few chestnut strands of hair behind her ear with the other. Everything else seemed about right, she noted, from the slight curves of her hips, to the upturn of her nose.  

He rose his brows, clearing his throat as he glanced up at his model.

“To be fair, you _are_ that flat,” he said with a teasing grin that only widened as she gave him a rough, yet playful slap on the arm. “Luckily, you clinch your waist and push them in the right way to make you look… you know,” he struggled to keep his gaze on her face. “…when you’re doing your bit.”

“You could at least… make them look a little… more voluptuous…?” she murmured as she scrunched her face, tilting her head at the charcoal draft.

“I only put the truth down on paper,” he sighed, his tone playfully wistful. “I’m a man who favors more than anything else three things: beauty, truth, and love.”

“You’re an _impressionist_ ,” she muttered flatly. “You don’t paint from local color, you paint vaguely what someone might look like, and you madly attack your canvas with a flurry of strokes, but you can’t make my breasts a little…” She gestured slightly, curving her hands over her chest, becoming flustered at her own request.

“This is my impression of you,” he laughed. “And it’s just a sketch, Rey.”

“A two-hour sketch?” She leaned back, stretching her back as she gestured over to a ticking clock on the wall, it’s hands just a half an hour short of the start of the show. “You were supposed to take a look at my journal. I did what you said, draw from life and nature. Now how will I ever know if I am any good as you’ve placed me, yet again, in the corner to play as your model. There are dozens of pretty girls, who have… more pleasing forms,” she gestured once again at her chest. “Yet, you keep asking me to sit for you.”

“No one else will sit for two hours without interrupting me,” he teased as he watched as she hurried towards the door.

“And now I’m going to be late, Maz is going to remove me as a headliner, and I’ll be back on the streets,” she moaned woefully, tossing her head back as she covered her eyes with the back of one hand. She peeked one eye out as she gestured towards her journal that sat just a distance away from where she had been laying. “Look over that tonight. Tell me if you see anything good. I had one of the girls who works backstage sit for a portrait.”

He grabbed it, flipping it open as he frowned slightly, squinting his eyes and flipping the book upside down. “She doesn’t look… like this, does she? Poor girl…”

“You’re a cruel man, Finn,” Rey snapped as she scurried out of the door, the preamble of light music in the main hall alerting her that they were about to warm up the crowd. Whatever critique he had would have to wait until later as she had a full face of makeup to powder on and an entire wardrobe to be squeezed into.

Darting through the back halls of the night club, her bare feet hit the old floor, creaking the wood as it squeaked cries to plea for a renovation that it was years from getting. Paint peeled from the panels, flakes of vermillion paint speckling the mahogany. Twenty years before, Rey had heard that Maz’s place was all luxury and show. Now, the front of the house had been maintained, allowing the illusion that the Castle was as vibrant and alive as it was the day that it had opened.

As she made her way back towards the dressing room, she caught sight of the small, old woman who lead their troupe barking orders to the dancers as she moved in a flurry. Maz was possibly the smallest person Rey had ever met, bustling with energy that no elderly lady should have. She wore large spectacles where the glass so thick that they magnified her russet eyes, and dressed like a man in a pair of well-tailored suit, her kinky curls pressed into a cap on her head.

“Rey!” she gasped as she approached, taking the girl by her hand. She gave her a look over, noting her robe, before giving a large roll of her eyes before pushing her into her dressing room. It was a messy space, small and packed with an assortment of costumes. Her vanity was packed with an assortment of small trinkets that she had collected over the years, leaving little room for the make-up, jewelry, and assorted accessories that it was meant for. The chair was cluttered in scarves and robes. “I said you both could use that room if it didn’t interfere with business. You being late to perform, Rey, _that_ interferes with business.”

“I’m not late,” she argued as Maz started to dig through her costumes, her fingers ticking through her wardrobe in a flurry. “I’ve got half an hour! What are you looking for? I’ve already got my costume pulled out. We’re doing the ‘sunshine’ number, so I’m wearing that little yellow outfit with the stockings and heels.”

“There’s been a change in plans,” the older woman grunted as she continued to poke through her wardrobe.

“What?” Rey choked as she approached Maz who was still furiously searching for something. “Why? We haven’t rehearsed for anything else.”

“Tonight is going to change everything for you, Rey,” she murmured as she fixated on a cream-colored corset that was embroidered with an elaborate lacey pattern. “I can feel it in my bones… and if things are going to change for you, it’s going to change for _us._ ”

She was always _feeling things in her bones_ , as she liked to put it. When Rey had joined Maz’s troupe, she had asked why she had taken her under her wing.

She had been a grime-covered girl, barely fourteen, picking pockets and scavenging the streets for a man named Plutt who kept a gang of street-children under his employ. For as long as she could remember, she had been picking for him. All that time, she had told herself that she was waiting to be found. By who, she was never quite sure. When she had been young, she had hoped that it would be her parents. As she grew older, she had hoped it would be anyone looking for a daughter. Once she had reached her teens, her hope had run thin, but she still had clung to it.

On an impulse, she had tried to pick the purse of the old woman. It had been a messy scuffle between her and Maz. She, a street urchin, and Maz, a feisty elder, were both determined to win the little fight, but starved and weak, Rey had lost the fight far more easily than she ever would admit.

 By her ear, she had been dragged off of the streets, all while the elderly woman spouted off a speech on why it was wrong to steal (as if she hadn’t already known). After fifteen minutes, she had begged for her to turn her in or at least let her go back to Plutt empty handed. Instead of turning her in to the nearest constable, Maz had brought her into the Castle, cleaned her up, and given her the first warm meal in years.

When she had asked why she wasn’t being taken in for trying to steal from her, the woman merely smiled and said, “You belong _here_. I can feel it in my bones.”

That was all the invitation Rey had needed to leave Plutt.

Crossing her arms, she gave her a tired glance as Maz continued to scour the room, picking out a string of costume pearls and a gauzy bustle.

“I need more than that, Maz. We’ve gone over this.” She had spent five long years with the older woman and in those five years she had grown tired of that vague explanation. It was always right, her intuition, but that came with waiting for the explanation to come out on it’s on. She had spent years _waiting._ It grew tiresome.

“You’ll do that new number we’ve been working on,” the old woman said with a nod. “The one where you wrap the audience around your little finger. We can still have you make that dramatic entrance—”

“Maz!” she cried out exasperatedly. First Finn, now Maz. It was as if she might as have been mute the way that no one seemed to hear her. “What is going on?”

“There is a change in the winds,” she said vaguely as she attempted to wave away Rey’s worry. “And this will be the catalyst!”

“A song and dance will be the catalyst?” She doubted it. Nothing came that easy. Even if she had been taken in by the woman from the streets, she had just moved from one part of the slums to another. It was dressed up a bit prettier. She would never complain as the Castle was better than being under Plutt’s thumb, but it was far from the life she had imagined she would have.

“Yes, yes,” the older woman murmured as she put together the outfit. She nodded in approval just as the door cracked open.

“Rey, did you ask—” A round faced girl with unruly black hair paused in the doorway, blinking as she saw the pair. “Oh, I didn’t know… I-I can come back!”

“Rose!” the older woman ushered her in. “You have perfect timing! I need you to help Rey get ready. She was sitting too long with Finn and now… I’m already running behind. I have to warm up the crowd.” She turned as she moved towards the door, “We’re doing the new number, with the scarf.”

Rey had no time to argue. As quickly as she had been tearing through Rey’s wardrobe, Maz left. Rey gave Rose a weak smile as she disrobed once more and started to put on what the woman had left behind. The other woman acted as a stagehand, helping the performers get ready and making sure that every show went off without a hitch. As long as it was behind the scenes, Rose could fill any role that Maz needed her to.

From the dressing room, she could hear the crowd cheering. No doubt Maz had run straight from the room and onto the stage.

“I’ve shown Finn that picture I drew of you,” she said as they both worked on getting her clinched into the corset. “I didn’t get a chance to ask if he would be interested in having you sit. He just… laughed at how poorly I drew you.”

She pinched her lips as she took in a sharp breath as Rose gave the corset a firm yank.

“Oh,” she murmured disappointedly as she gave a hard swallow. Rose didn’t look at her as she lead Rey over to a chair and started to carefully pin her hair from her face. “Well, if you… if you get the chance…”

Rose had approached Rey the night before, asking if she could see if Finn would be interested in having her sit for him. While Rey hadn’t found the request odd in and of itself, she had never seen Rose as someone who would want to sit as a subject. She worked hard, keeping every show on track, but she had struck Rey as someone who wanted to remain backstage, far from the limelight.

She was a quiet girl with a sort of sadness that clung to her. It was sadness that Rey had never dared to ask about as that would open the door for Rose to ask about her own. The troupe was an assortment of broken pieces that came together to make a colorful mosaic that seemed to please the audience.

“I’ll ask him the next time I see him, I promise,” Rey insisted with a smile as she started to apply rouge to her lips and cheeks as Rose continued to work on her hair. “He could get your likeness down far better than I could.”

As they finished, Rey found, as she always did, that she didn’t recognize the girl in the mirror. Her diamond shaped face was still hers, but her cheekbones were heightened by the rouge on her cheeks, her smile whitened by the red of her lips, and her eyes brightened by how she had lined them. She looked like a doe-eyed doll.

A thunderous applause announced that it was time for her to leave her dressing room as no doubt the ensemble and Maz were readying to do a quick encore before she was expected to meet the crowd.

“You should go,” Rose said as she pinned one last curl into place.

“It’s perfect, thank you,” she breathed as she glanced back at Rose, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze as she left the messy room.

 

* * *

 

“She comes from the far reaches of Jakku! Hot, beautiful, exotic… a desert rose!” Maz’s voice boomed. “Our Little Rey of Sunshine!”

Descending from the rafters as she sat in a wooden ring that had been painted gold, Rey breathed as she clung to a purple scarf. Jakku, wherever it was, wasn’t where she was from, but it made her sound far more exciting than being trash that Maz had found in the gutter, so they had gone with the little story. The patrons, she had been assured, liked the stories.  The more extravagant, the better. A desert rose was far more enticing than a scavenging rat.

As the spotlight struck and the music began, she twisted alluringly, using the scarf to pull herself into a standing position as she moved with the careful precision of an acrobat on the ring as it began to swing over the audience.

“ _My days are brighter than morning air_ ,” she began, her voice a rich mezzosoprano.  “ _Evergreen pine and autumn blue…_ ”

Another careful twist as she swung, her eyes scanning the audience for potential participants. Maz had wanted her to do this song for a reason, for the interaction. As she maneuvered herself, she used the scarf to lower herself down to the stage. With a pointed toe, she landed on the floor as she pulled herself into a graceful twirl.

“ _But all my days are twice as fair_  
_If I could share_  
_My days with you…_ ”

One hand on the ring, she leaned forward and twisted the scarf around one man in the audience, watching him blush as she gave him a wink before releasing him and moving on. The act was playful, promising her love from one man to the next, watching them squirm beneath her sweet touch and pretty words. It was a series of three, flirting with the first man shortly, the second man a few moments more, and giving the third man all of her attention for the rest of the act, and end with a playful kiss.

If she had known that she was doing the act, she would have had her marks picked from the backstage as Maz warmed up the crowd, but instead, her gaze was darting as she attempted to decide who would be getting her attention.

Moving to the next man, she found a regular and a friend of Finn’s, Poe Dameron. He was a captain of the guard in the city of Coruscant, and had a cocky grin that the girls whispered about backstage. As she caught him in her cloth, she found herself understanding what all the whispers were for. Catching her with a crooked smirk and a wink, she could see how someone could fall headlong for the rogue. He had a reputation of an impulsive flirt, something that she found she saw too much of in the Castle to entice her to take him seriously.

“ _My nights are warmer than firecoals_  
_Incense and stars and smoke bamboo_  
_But nights were warm beyond compare_  
_If I could share_  
_My nights with you…_ ”

Her eyes flitted across the crowd as she looked for her next prey as she flourished another spin with her cloth. The final of the three she would share the act with, she decided. A man with a scar marking right side of his face and a humorless expression caught her attention. His gloved hands clung tensely to the armrest of his chair. Beneath his dark gloves, she didn’t doubt that his knuckles were white with strain. Any other man looking as dower would have given her pause, but something in her called to her to make him the final part of the act.

He was sharply dressed all in black. His clothes were finely tailored, alerting her that he was from money. Whether or not he had it on him, of course, would decide if he was the bringer of change that Maz had been so excited about. Regardless, she did find herself drawn to him as she felt some sort of energy move between them. A brushing warmth like a breeze that made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

As soon as she had met his gaze, the color of cognac, she had felt caught by the heat that was there. Everything about him drew her to him, distracting her from the rest of the crowd as she struggled to continue.  The style of his black hair that was cropped around his chin with its finely trimmed beard brought out the angular, long features of his face. He was handsome, she decided. Not traditionally, but with all the pieces as they were, he was by far the most attractive man in the Castle that evening. If she had to give someone a kiss, it wouldn’t hurt her to share it with him.

“ _To dance in my dreams_  
_To shine when I need the sun_  
_With you_  
_To hold me when dreams are done._ ”

She twisted the cloth around his neck, lowering herself to him. While most men would have seemed flustered, he remained stoic as his gaze bore into her as he weren’t there to be entertained. Unlike the rest of the crowd, he was watching her in a way that she was unfamiliar with. He was studying her like she was an oddity instead of a dancer. It was enough to make her breath catch, but she inwardly shook the feeling away.

He wasn’t a man looking for a kiss, she decided as she thought briefly about going to a fourth man, breaking the routine. Anything to regain control of the situation. He wasn’t reacting as he should, tense and aloof instead of flustered and enticed.   

“ _And oh...._  
_My dearest love_  
_If you will take my love_  
_Then all my dreams are truly begun…_ ”

It was just a performance. He was just a man, mostly dragged in by a group of friends, forced into having a night of fun. This was nothing. The dull pulsing sensation as she neared him was nothing. The crackling heat that she thought that she felt between them, all in her head. She felt nothing in her bones, she told herself.

 _This is nothing,_ she insisted to herself. _Just another night. Just another performance._

The more she moved, the more frustrated she became with the fact that he refused to play along. She should have moved on to the man seated to his right, a red-haired man who was covering his hand and trying his hardest not to laugh at his companion. The one who had dragged him into the Castle in the first place, surely, by his choked laughter that he was desperately trying to swallow. If it hadn’t been for his beady weasel eyes that sent a chill up her spine, she might have considered it.

“ _And time weaves ribbons of memory_  
_To sweeten life when youth is through_  
 _But I would need no memories there_  
 _If I could share_  
 _My life with…_ you _…_ ”

She reached out, her middle finger trailing his jaw just a quarter of inch above the skin as she leaned in close. He truly felt electric to her, that air barely between them crackling with an energy that was both exciting and frightening. What would her lips against his feel like, she wondered?

Parting her lips, she watched him stiffen as realization struck him. His eyes became troubled, yet eager as she came close. His façade had broken and once again, the act was hers. At his reaction, she felt relief.

_Control._

Her lips broke into a grin as she reached over with a hand to give his proud nose a squeeze, a playful substitute for a kiss. As she pinched it, she felt herself rock on her feet as something passed between them at their touch.

She was thunderstruck, shaken to her core as everything part of her seemed to hum with the heat as her head felt as if it had cracked open, aching as if she had been struck hard on the head. At the action, the crowd roared with laughter and applause as the sweet song ended so simply, not aware that she was suffering.

Her body felt inflamed as she stumbled back against the stage as she let him out of her grasp, staring at the odd man in shock as her consciousness began to fade. Rey met the man's gaze, no longer aloof but his brow furrowed with concern. Had he felt it?

 _Breathe_ , she told herself as blackness prickled at the edge of her vision, the heat of a mysterious energy erupting over her. _Just breathe..._

Over the gasps of the crowd, she could have sworn she heard someone call out her name as she slipped into darkness.

 


	2. Insence and Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo is perplexed by Rey, who seems to brim with untapped magic. Rey is tempted into a private meeting with Kylo Ren in a private room... under false circumstances and an absurd amount of cash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the great feedback! You're the best! It's a lot of words such bad writing! Sorry!

Kylo watched as the girl descended from the rafters, shining in white against the rich reds and scarlets that decorated the hall. With a loud punch, the spotlight broke and brought all attention to her.  

Only moments before the whole place had been booming with a jazzy refrain lead by the bizarre old madam, Maz, and a dozen thick, scantily clad women dressed in a series of brightly colored, revealing gowns. As the cheers and boisterous catcalls ended, the soft trickling of piano keys called for a change of demeanor as Maz announced the next act.

When the elderly madam had introduced her, he had fought the urge to pull the crushed poster from his jacket pocket to compare the woman to the print: The Castle’s “Little Rey of Sunshine.”

 _What a stupid stage name_ , he had thought as he ran his fingers over his jacket pocket. Still, he had come to investigate this primal draw to her. The draw that had pulled him off of the street as if he were being yanked along by a string.  Sitting the audience, watching her as she moved with careful precision, he still felt the need to get closer to her. What he would do at that point, he wasn’t sure. Demand answers, most likely. Rarely did his instinct guide him like this, so this girl who was nothing more than something to be ogled, was _something_. 

As he had headed towards the old cabaret, he had tried to understand how he recognized a woman he had never met, but he had learned long ago never to doubt his intuition. Despite that, he felt like a madman. It wasn’t merely intuition driving him forward, he realized. Whatever it was seemed more entangled with his very essence, the energy that acted as an extension to his power. Every step seemed driven more by a force that he didn’t understand rather than his own will to seek her out. Especially with Hux hot on his heels, he should have reasoned with himself to come back another night.

If he had the wherewithal, he would have just come back in the morning and sought her out in the daylight. Instead, he was watching her in her element as her voice hit the air, clear and pleasant. In another life, he had studied a bit of music. If he hadn’t erupted with magic at the age of fourteen, needing to tamper down the power, he thought that he might have one day pursued it.

As he listened to her sing, he realized that her voice wasn’t anything impressive. Not bad, but nothing earth shattering. Never an aria or a masterwork would come gracefully from her lips was something he could easily decide. There would be no grand story in which this woman escaped from burlesque and rose to fame in an opera house.  She was no more impressive than any other girl who had a bit of musical training.  There was no underlying factor of extraordinary musical talent that made prima donnas, he noted. She would be lucky to be plucked up as a chorus girl.

No, her talent laid strictly in every expression of her lovely face and every calculated move of her lithe form that seemed to enrapture to audience, himself included. 

Stark white against the red of the room, she looked like an angel descending into the depths of hell where he sat amongst the demons, a throng of well-dressed men leering at her hungrily. As sweet as she looked, he realized as she teased her first mark with a coy gleam in her eyes, she knew what she was dealing with and how to play the crowd with a twist of the lavender cloth between her fingers or the sway of her hips.

The longer he watched her, the stronger that pull was. The stronger the pull, the more he came to sense there was something more to the woman. She was vibrating with an energy that any master magician would be desperate to find in an apprentice. Was she even aware of the magnitude of potential that was beating through her? As she leaned in to sing another soft line to the next man that she swung, he felt Hux stiffen beside him.

“That’s Poe Dameron,” he hissed, sinking into his seat. “What the hell is a New Republic guard dog doing in a place like this?”                       

Kylo felt his jaw begin to grind as he looked at the man. He was a close confidant to the dowager duchess Leia Organa, a woman who had the blood of nobility in her veins, but had pushed for the Republic. She was known for her involvement in the destruction of the Empire and the rise of the New Republic. Even without her title, in the sunset of her life, the shadows that loomed from her reach ran long across Coruscant. Whatever Dameron was doing there, he was sure that it wasn’t purely for the entertainment.

He hadn’t even a moment to ponder why before he locked eye contact with the girl, Rey, once more. Her eyes gleamed with a determined mischief that caused him to grip the armrests of his chair as that sense of knowing her only grew stronger while at the same time, he became completely sure that he had never laid eyes on her before he had walked into the cabaret. Everything about her was familiar in the same way that a forgotten dream was familiar. She was at the edge of his memory, mind gripping and grasping to place her, but try as he might, he couldn’t.

He felt, that in that moment, he was in a fog. Struggling to think as that energy that he could sense while she was a distance away, clouded him upon her approach. His entire body tensed as she came close, wrapping that damned scarf around his neck from behind. He gripped the arms of his seat tighter, fighting the urge to grab the cloth from her and toss it away.

_Answers, I need answers… Who are you?_

The power within her was palpable, packed so tightly within her that it was as if she were ready to explode with the force she was so clearly unaware of. If she knew that she was brimming with magic, he could see no reason that she would waste her life away singing poorly and revealing herself for every man who wandered into the dimly lit cabaret. He tensed as he grinded his jaw, eyes never leaving her, even as he could feel Hux choking on laughter to his right.

He watched her face fall as she failed to get a reaction, struggling to maintain her façade. Something about her eyes darting, struggling to maintain contact with his own intense gaze only pushed him to remain levelheaded. Even as she danced in her sweeping swirls, trying to tempt him, to draw him away from her face to the slender curves over body that were quite obvious to him in his peripheral, he decided he would win this bizarre game he had found himself engaged in.

That was until he felt the hint of her touch on his jaw, the heat of her touch electric with the power she possessed, a power that called to his core. Just as she seemed to call out to her, he felt the force that he had long contained reach for her. Watching her crimson lips, the fact that she was singing struck him once more as a dull thudding in his chest rushed to keep tempo.

 “ _And time weaves ribbons of memory_  
_To sweeten life when youth is through_  
_But I would need no memories there_  
_If I could share_  
_My life with…_ you _…_ ”

From within he felt something primal ring within him as she leaned in, parting her lips as he realized what the end of her act was. Too maddened by the friction that had begun to build between them, he leaned forward into the fog of her aura.

 _Certainly_ , he told himself, _she feels it, that draw between us._

It was more than a mere attraction. Even if he had wanted to deny that he was attracted to her, he wouldn’t deny that she was beautiful. She had fine eyes, bright and determined even as she was leered at in the old cabaret. Out of all the men in the crowd, she had approached him. She had seemed flustered when he wouldn’t play her game. As she leaned in closer, perfect lips parting, he was sure that she felt it as well.  

 _Mine._  

Mirth flickered in her eyes as he realized that she had won their game and she claimed her victory: a twist of his long nose and a grin that lit her face brighter than any spotlight could. The crowd erupted in laughter, surely assuring the girl, Rey, that she had won.

So quickly, that humor was washed away as the touch, as simple as it was, cracked between them. To him, it had been merely a strong static shock, causing him to flinch. The contact had left the dancer staggered, staring at him in confusion as she struggled to stand. He watched as two deep breaths rose and fell from her before she collapsed to the floor.

“ _Rey!_ ” a voice broke above the crowd’s dying laughter. A man dressed in the shoddiest suit that Kylo had ever had the misfortune of seeing, splattered and stained with paint, rushed over. Dameron rose from his seat as well, moving to meet the dark-skinned man just as Maz returned to the stage.

“Oh… Oh dear!” the woman called above the panicked murmurs of the crowd as the two men lifted her, the group all playing off her collapse as they hurried her backstage. “It seems like she has… has a little too much excitement this evening with so many handsome gentlemen callers! Fear not, she’ll be out here tomorrow night! For now, please… let these lovely ladies entertain you.”

With the blasting band playing them on, Maz quietly slipped behind the curtain and he rose to his feet.

“Time to go? Have you had your fun?” Hux asked as he stood. As Kylo began to walk to the opposite direction of the exit, Hux grabbed his arm tightly. “What are you doing? You’re not seriously going to…”

“This is where we part for the evening, Hux.” With a slight wave of his hand, he headed towards the back of the house, leaving a bewildered Hux staring after him. No doubt he would tell their master, but he’d risk it. Whatever this girl was—whoever she was—he needed to know.

* * *

“Rey, drink…”

Rey woke to a glass of water pressed to her mouth. Eagerly, she gulped it down, feeling as if she hadn’t had a drink in days. She shivered, realizing that she was drenched in sweat as the cool night breeze poured in from the window. Her head swam as she opened her eyes, the room briefly spinning before she focused on Finn’s face.

“What happened?” she asked, her voice hoarse. She attempted to sit up, but as she did vertigo hit and the room began to turn violently around her. Collapsing against the bed, she took the cloth from Finn and placed it over her eyes as she tried desperately not to lose the contents of her stomach. “How long… How long have I been out?”

“Just a few minutes,” he murmured as he patted her head with a wet cloth. “You fell right after your song ended. Fainted dead.”

“I told you to drink more water before going on,” Maz chided as she entered the room hurriedly. Rey poked the cloth away from her eyes briefly to catch the look of excitement glowing in her eyes where there should have been concern. Whatever she had felt her bones, Rey decided, had come to fruition or was about to. “Look at you… What happened?”

“I don’t know…” Rey struggled to remember as she rose her hands to her head, running her fingers through her hair, ruining Rose’s careful pincurls in the process. Her memory was foggy, but as closed her eyes again, she remembered the man and the sharp pain that had rocked her body. “I… I grabbed that man’s nose… and that’s all I remember.”

She swallowed hard, leaving out the crucial detail about the pain. How did she begin to explain something that she didn’t understand? It wasn’t just the pain, but it had been the build up to it. He had been pulsing with a bizarre aura that she had blown off as his own tension for not wanting to be in the Castle. It had made sense in the moment. He had looked completely frustrated as he sat in the audience, watching her as if she were just some whore toying with him for a few bills. She had marked him as wealthy in his tailored suit, but being watched as if she were something unwanted hadn’t been worth trying to win him over.  

“Well, clean up,” Maz murmured as she grabbed the jug of water and poured her another glass. “Because that man paid for a private performance.”

“No,” she gasped, managing to sit up as she took the glass and began sipping on it.

“What do you mean, ‘no?’” the older woman hissed as she glanced toward the door. “He’s offering enough money to repair the entire back of the house… just for a private number.”

“I don’t want to be alone with that man,” she insisted as she gave her a curt shake of the head. Briefly, she felt as if her brain had rattled loose. Maz had gone mad if she hadn't sensed the same peculiarity in the man that she had. “There’s something odd about him. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, Rey,” Finn murmured as she shot Poe a glance. “You can escort that guy out of here, right? If he makes a fuss.”

“Of course,” Poe answered. He glanced towards the door, the cocksure nature seeming lost as he anxiously rubbed the back of his neck before forcing a grin with a quick nod. Still, he didn’t add anything to his claim that he’d be able to rid them of the brooding gentleman if he decided that he wanted to make a scene, but Rey felt that there was something being left unsaid.

That energy… It felt dangerous. How did she defend herself when she didn’t even know where to start with what it was?

“Wait—” The amount struck her slowly like ice thawing in soft drops, striking cold and hard. “You said he was going to pay enough to have the entire back of the house refurbished? The would take tearing up most of the floor—”

“I know.”

“And… and replacing the lights with electric—”

“Yes.”

“And… and…” She felt dizziness come over her once again. “That much for… for one private song?”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” the older woman replied as she reached for her coin purse and revealed the contents with. “He… He gave me half of the credits up front.”

“Holy shit,” Finn muttered as the three of them stared at the wad of bills that had been shoved into the purse.

“That’s just… half?” Rey breathed, shaking her head. She hadn’t ever seen so much cash at once, so many bills neatly folded into practically a ball of credits. In her wilder days on the street, she would have done anything just to look at that kind of money. As she sat there, she realized she wasn’t so far removed from her scavenging days.

“This is just half,” Maz answered. “I told you, Rey. I told you that I felt it in my bones. This man is going to pay to revitalize this business. His name is Kylo Ren and he’s waiting in the velvet room.”  

Poe coughed and quietly excused himself.

“I guess… I guess I have a private performance to get ready for,” she breathed, her heart pounding as she wondered what exactly he was expecting. She had flirted before, kissed, and fondled men playfully as a part of an act, but she had never gone so far as to share the evening with a man.    

“Rey…” Finn murmured softly. “You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s okay.” She reached over and gave his arm a squeeze as she took a shaky step on the ground. Even if Maz hadn’t implied that this was any different than usual, she felt that it must be. Who offered that much money just to watch her?

“It’s just a song and dance,” she laughed, pushing the hysteria that wanted so badly to break free from her down. “Nothing out of the usual. It’s just… an unusual amount of money offered by the grumpiest looking man who has ever walked into this place hoping to be entertained.”

_And… he’s brooding with the most dangerous aura that I’ve ever felt. And I don’t think I’ve ever even felt... whatever an aura is._

As the others exited the room, she began getting ready by cleaning the sweat from her body. She doubted that he had paid to watch her walk in, glistening with sweat and paler than parchment. It was a simple fix. There had been occasions before when she had become lightheaded from lack of hydration and food before going on, the heat of the bright lamp and the adrenaline rush making her lightheaded. A bit of powder, a change of costume, a pin or two to her curls, and she was ready go.

Catching herself in the mirror, she had dressed in a simple, sleek dress that color of silver that hugged her body, showing off what little curves she had. Looking at herself, she had been hoping for a boost of confidence, but instead she felt nerves knot in her stomach for the first time since she had started at the Castle. 

_This is nothing. It’s just a performance. The fact that he’s offering more money that you’ve ever hoped to see in your life, for thirty minutes alone with you, is nothing._

Clearing her throat, she made long strides towards the back of the house. She entered the velvet room to see the man standing with his back to the door, eying the decorations with distaste. Curtains, all of the furniture, and the walls were all covered in various shades of violet velvet. Rey always imagined that when Maz had decorated the room, it had been in vogue. Now, it just seemed drab and old fashioned.

“So, you requested a private number,” she called coyly, trying to catch his attention and distract him from his taste with the décor. With a sauntering step, she moved over to a fainting couch and sat down, reclining casually as she batted her eyes. “I didn’t think you had enjoyed my performance the way you were gripping your seat, looking ready to bolt.”

“You’re right,” Kylo Ren replied as he turned to face her, adjusting his gloves as he once again began to eye her with suspicion. “You were pitchy, easily flustered, and the number was… dull, so no… I wasn’t impressed with your performance.”

“But you requested… a private number?” she asked, awkwardly repositioning herself as she nearly slipped from shock. He was insulting her. He was insulting her song choice, her singing, and her performance. Everything she had was put into those nightly routines. Outside the Castle, she had nothing. She was nothing. As she stared dumbly, she felt as if he had struck her across the face. 

“I requested a room,” he replied, gesturing with one hand at the room as he rolled his eyes before his intense gaze settled back on her. “And I requested you to join me in it. The furthest thing I’m thinking of is another one of your performances.”  

“Oh.” The noise fell from her lips before she could stop it as she watched as he began to stride slowly toward her, his intensity never wavering. 


	3. Put Down the Vinegar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Kylo have a misunderstanding. Poe Dameron goes searching for Hux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the lovely reviews! I'm going to try and update more frequently!

As Kylo strode towards her, Rey gathered her wits and got to her feet, slipping behind the couch quickly as she gripped the back of it.

“I know you paid a lot of money to get me back here,” she breathed, keeping her chin high. If he didn’t pay for a performance, it was more than obvious by his predatory approach that he thought he had paid for her to sleep with him. She had intended to kiss him earlier in the evening, considering him the most eligible man in the club, but now at the thought of being paid to sleep with him, any positive thought she might have held for him was gone.

“Yes.” He looked at her expectantly, watching her with a wary eye as he paused mid-step.

By the way he paused, watching her carefully like a stray animal caught in a trap, she assumed that she must have looked like she was about to bolt. If he came any closer, she thought that she might.

Whoever he was, Kylo Ren, she knew one thing about him: he wasn’t to be trusted. The fact that he had paid so much to get her alone was one thing. The heated energy that seemed to roll off of him in fumes even in that moment sent every instinct she had learned living on the streets screaming. A man with too much money was something she knew how to handle. Kylo Ren was more than a fool bachelor throwing around money as easily as he threw around insults and she found herself struggling to navigate this new uncharted territory.     

“But that doesn’t mean you can take whatever you want from me,” she stated, a false confidence tinting her words even as her heart fearfully thrummed in her chest. “You paid for a performance, you get a performance.”

A smirk twisted on his lips before a slight snort of laughter escaped him. It was sharp, and if not for the upturn of his lips, she would have mistaken it for a sigh.

Her brows furrowed as she stared at him for a moment before her eyes flickered to the only exit, the heavy oak door she had just walked through. It was only for a moment before she was looking back at Kylo, but she had seen that she had left it cracked. It was just a sliver, the dim gaslight a welcomed glow. If she had to run, she could most likely make it. If she didn’t make it, she could scream and someone would hear while the door remained open.  

“Let’s get something straight, I could take anything that I wanted from you.” His smirk faded, but he didn’t approach her. He spoke nonchalantly, the words falling from his lips easily as if he were casually informing her of what the weather was like outside. “Whether or not you want to give it, I could take it. So, you can keep inching your way towards the door, or you can sit down.”

“If you could take anything from me you wouldn’t have tossed so much money Maz’s way,” she bit out through clenched teeth as anger got the better of her. She should have remained composed, thought of some way to charm her way out of the room. The armoire across the room was a hidden bar. With a sweet bat of her eyes, she could have offered him a drink and attempted to get him too drunk to do whatever he intended. With his claim, any sensible idea she might have had was chased away by rage. “Men like you overcompensate with money because you’ve got nothing else to make people want to give you the time of day. Because if you didn’t have money, you’d be a nobody.”

He finally took another step forward and she took it as her cue to make her escape. Hiking up the hem of her dress to her lower thigh, she bolted for door only to watch it close with a soft thud and a gentle click of the lock. Her hand went for the knob, jangling it to no avail as her heart raced, realizing she didn’t have a key... And that the door had closed and locked seemingly on its own. No, she told herself. That was impossible and absolutely insane to think. He must have had an accomplice who had been waiting outside the door. His companion from before must have followed them back. If someone was outside the door, watching and waiting… she was trapped.

She spun on her heel to face him, her fingers clutching the silk cloth as she pressed her back to the door.

He gestured towards the couch with a curt nod, his jaw set with a tight impatience before he took a deep breath through his nose.

“Sit and let’s talk,” he murmured with an unexpected warmth in his tone. “Please.”

“I can talk right here,” Rey replied quickly, not moving from the door.

“I’m sure you can, but I’d rather talk to you like two civilized people.” She could hear him forcing patience in his tone like a parent dealing with a difficult child.   

“Civilized people don’t hurl insults or threaten one another.” First, he attacked her singing and then he implied that he would force her into whatever situation he had decided he was paying for. “You can’t charm me with a simple ‘please.’ Not after what you said.”

“I never threatened you.” He seemed confused at her claim, shaking his head as he moved towards the couch and put more space between them. Rey took a breath as she blinked in disbelief.

“You just said you would take anything you wanted from me whether or not I wanted to give it to you,” she accused as she took a tentative step away from the door. “That’s not a threat?”

“I said that I could not that I would,” he stated calmly. “I came here with no intentions of hurting you.”

“If I’m going to sit down, I’m going need a drink.” Rey crossed the room to the armoire as she realized that he wouldn’t be opening the door anytime soon. It seemed that she would have to get resourceful in her escape. A life on the street had left her ready to fight. Even if she was a pretty face in the Castle, she was still the street rat had done what she had to survive on the streets of Coruscant as a child. Like she had survived Plutt, she would find a way to survive this encounter with Kylo.

His words hadn’t brought her peace of mind. Instead, all she could think about was how he had paid Maz thinking that she would easily lie with him for the evening. She opened the doors, revealing a well-stocked bar. There was everything from the finest bottles of vintage Alderaanian wine from before the city burned to the cheapest bottle of Corellian rum, smuggled in from across the border. She traced a hand over a bottle of red wine, cheap, never opened, and heavy. “Do you want something?”

“I’ll have a scotch, please,” he replied as he settled onto the couch. He leaned against the armrest, his back to her. Swallowing, she began to pour a glass of scotch, glancing over her shoulder as she watched him relax to the sound of her pouring the liquor. From behind she watched as his shoulders began to ease from tight tension as he took a deep breath. She looked back to the bottle of wine as she saw a chance. She could club him, jimmy the lock with a hairpin, and deal with his friend on the other side of the door.

Quickly, she grasped the neck of the bottle before rushing over to the couch, ready to swing the bottle into the back of his skull. Rising to strike, she made her move to club him. Instead of the feeling of the weight of the bottle clattering against his skull, it froze mid-swing as if it had been stopped by an invisible force as Kylo twisted to face her. It felt like someone had caught the bottle by the body with a strong grip.

After struggling, Rey released the bottle expecting it to drop hard to the floor. Instead, it hung in the air before being flung across the room into the far wall where it crashed and clattered. Rey cried out, covering her mouth as dark wine stained the wall as the green tinted glass fell in shards.

Kylo rose to his feet, towering over her as his dark gaze burned. Suddenly, she felt her entire body tense, frozen just like the bottle had been moments before.  Her mind began to race, stuck on his threat of taking whatever he wanted as she realized that no matter how she tried to move, she couldn’t. In a strange way, it hurt to even attempt to move like she was pushing hard against a weight, straining her muscles even at the smallest attempt. As she tried to cry out for help, not even a squeak escaped her lips as her throat ached as if she had just screamed at the top of her lungs.  

He wasn’t just a rich man with a dangerous air about him, she realized. She hadn’t collapsed because of the heat of the lights, there was no one on the other side of that door, and wine bottles didn’t just fling themselves across the room.

“I’ve tried to play nice, but you seem determined to make things more difficult than they need to be,” he seethed, trembling with an anger he seemed to be desperately trying to control. Her eyes focused on the wine still crawling down on the far wall as she remembered how easily it had been flung across the room. “I’m going to let you go, you’re going to sit down, and I’m going to get what I paid for.”

Just as suddenly as she had been frozen into place, she was released, catching herself against the back of the couch to keep herself from falling to the floor.

“I won’t sleep with you,” she gasped as she clung to the back of the couch as she tried to catch her breath. “So… So just… unlock the door and I’ll make sure Maz gives you back your money.”

Swallowing hard, she met his gaze expecting that angry fire to grow hotter. Instead, she was met with confusion. “I don’t want to sleep with you. That’s not why I’m here.”

“You said that you… you didn’t want a performance.”

“I don’t,” he replied. “You’ve got a plain voice and you’re an amateur talent. You were never born to be a singer. You can keep the money that I gave Maz and the money I promised her after I spend my time with you. All I want is to talk.”

“I don’t understand…” She slowly rounded her way from the back of the couch even as he took another chance to insult her.

“That’s obvious,” he sighed as he once again gestured for her to sit. “I just want to talk, Miss…?”

“It’s just ‘Rey.’” There was no last name. Her parents have left her with nothing that might lead her back to them including a surname. As long as she could remember she might as well have been ‘Rey Nobody.’ As she sat on the couch, she couldn’t help but be curious to why this man wanted to speak with her. “Why?”

“Okay, _Rey_.” He tested the name on his tongue before seeming to decide that he liked it. He settled across from her, leaving a cushion between them even as he leaned towards her. Just as it had before, intensity lit his eyes. “I want to talk because of what happened in the club. Mainly, because of the energy between you and I.”

“There’s no energy between you and me. There’s just… you and your _magic_.” Had she found him attractive in the club when she was performing? She wasn’t blind, but whatever he thought he felt, it wasn’t mutual.

_It’s not_ , she insisted to herself as wished that there was more than a section of couch between them. _You chose him out of every man in the club because he was handsome. Nothing more, nothing less._

“You’re not so naïve to claim that you don’t feel it,” he snarled as he dug into his jacket pocket, pulling a folded piece of paper as he started to unfurl in haste. It was one of Finn’s posters featuring her. “It’s been driving me mad since I saw this… this damned poster on the street while I was… I was searching for someone. Instead of finding them, I find myself tethered and drawn to this place. To you, Rey.”

All his composure, his careful control seemed to disappear as he glanced down at the poster. This had all begun just because he had seen a poster on the street, she realized. It was such an insignificant thing, this ad, but he seemed to think that it was a sign.   

“I’m sorry, but I-I don’t feel anything. So, I think you should unlock the door and leave.”  

“Your entire being was shaken when you touched me,” he said softly. “Your very essence rose to meet me as if that magic had been waiting for me. You can’t deny that.”

“I can because you’re mad. You might be some sort of wizard—”

“Magician.”

“Excuse me?” She blinked.

“I’m not a wizard, I’m a magician.”

“Oh, are you going to pull a rabbit out of a hat and saw a woman in half?” she drawled as she rolled her eyes at his correction. She hardly understood why he thought that he needed to specify that he wasn’t a wizard or magician. Frankly, a wizard seemed like it would have been more impressive. “We had one of your kind a few years back, you know. They ended up having a drinking problem and couldn’t manage their sleight of hand. An entire deck of cards fell onto the stage from his sleeve while a dove flew out of his trousers.”

They had been wanting a Houdini, someone who could charm and fool the audience, who was creative and daring. Instead, they had gotten a drunkard who could barely stand on their feet for half a set. Supposedly, Maz had owed the man a favor, but when it came down to it, he was bad for business and she had to let him go.

“Stage magicians are charlatans at worst and entertainers at best,” he waved her off as he turned the conversation back to his magic and the fated draw he thought that they had. “You’ve seen what I can do… and you have the potential to wield the power. It’s been within you all your life, probably buried and muted, but now it’s awake—”

“No,” she laughed uneasily as realized that he was serious. If magic had caused her fainting spell during her performance, it was his magic. Not hers. She hadn’t spent most of her life on the streets unknowingly holding a secret power within her. She hadn’t struggled and starved when all of her problems could have been fixed at the twitch of her nose or the wave of a hand. “I am a performer. I sing, I dance, and I act. I don’t… I don’t ‘wield power.’”

“If you don’t learn how to control that power, it could destroy you,” he insisted as he came closer to her, closing that distance between them on the couch. She scooted back only to meet the armrest against the small of her back. “You need a teacher, someone who can help you grow and nurture this talent.” He kept his gaze steady on her as he spoke, the seriousness of his words sending a shiver up her spine as he reached over to take her hand into his own gloved.

“No!” she snapped, pulling her hand away before the cloth of his glove could even brush her skin. Her heart raced at the suggestion of spending more time with him. She told herself it was out of fear, but deep down she wasn’t sure if it was fear or if the idea of spending more time with him excited her. “Even if I did have… magic, you would be the last person I would let teach me. I… I can feel that there is a darkness within you. Not because I’m magic, but because it rolls off of you in waves. Because you thought that you had to pay for a conversation instead of just approaching me and asking for a moment of my time. Because you didn’t hesitate to use your magic against me.” She took a shuddering breath as she rose to her feet. “I’m sorry that you saw that poster, but you’re confused. Go home, Mr. Ren. Sleep off your night of madness and… and don’t come back here. It was obvious by your stiffness during my performance, as well as your cruel criticism, that the Castle doesn’t suit you.”  

Crossing her arms to her chest, she glanced towards the door. “Could you please…?” She kept her eyes averted from him as she heard the lock click and the door gently open.

“Rey—”

“Have a good night, Mr. Ren.” Rey didn’t look back as she hurried out the door before he could lock her in once more.

 

* * *

 

Poe Dameron rushed through the back of the house, sidestepping the glances he got from various performers, only replying with a cocky grin that seemed to make every one of the scantily clad dancers swoon. It was a practiced trick and just one of many that he kept hidden up his sleeve when it came with dealing with the performers.

If Kylo Ren was paying for an extra performance from Rey, that meant that Hux wasn’t too far behind. In the darkness of the club, he had mistaken them for two patrons that had decided to spend the evening at the Castle. Vaguely, he had thought that he recognized the pair from somewhere when Rey turned her attention to Kylo, but he had never thought that two of the highest-ranking members of the First Order would wander into the night club.

The sect of the New Republic that he privately served, the Resistance, had gathered information on the men. Nothing that they had gathered had indicated that the men frequented night clubs like the Castle. Rather, they had been madly searching for a man long thought dead and gone: Luke Skywalker. If they had come to the Castle, did that mean that they thought that the man could be there? As he practically had begun to live there, Poe knew that there wasn’t a chance that Skywalker could be hiding within the walls, so why would the pair of men bother to come there? And why would Ren pay so much just to speak to Rey?

As he exited through the back door into the alley, he placed his hand on his jacket pocket, reaching for his gun.

Cold metal of a gun barrel pressed roughly against the back of his head as he heard the click of hammer. Of course. He had intended to hunt down Hux, but he ended up as the one with the gun to head.

_Time to think on your feet, Poe._

“Put your hands up, Dameron,” a cold voice sneered. “I had always heard that Organa’s favorite pet was a notorious playboy, but I never expected to see it firsthand.”

“So, we finally meet, Armie,” Poe chuckled as he rose hands in the air. He was met with a rough blow to his head as Hux smacked him with the butt of the gun. “Shit!”

“Don’t speak to me so casually,” Hux growled against his ear, his breath against his neck. Perhaps it was the blow to his head, but Poe couldn’t help but thinking that he liked the other man’s cologne. “You’re the one with the gun against your skull, Dameron!”

“And you’re holding me captive in the back alley of a night club where cast and crew frequently come out to smoke, so do you have a plan here, or were you just waiting for Ren and happened to get a lucky break?” he asked. “Do you know how much money he’s throwing at that girl, by the way?”

“Money?” Hux seemed to be fazed by that.

“He’s paying to rebuild that whole club. I saw the cash and…” Poe whistled long and loud.

“Shut up!” he hissed as he lowered his gun to his back. “And start moving—”

Before he could force him down the alley, a rapid series of barks began to fill the alley way. A grin spread across Poe’s lips as he heard Hux cry out and his gun hit the stone of the alley street. Kicking the gun away, Poe grabbed his own and turned to face Hux. Glancing down, he saw his faithful Dogue de Bourdeux with his massive jaw locked into the ginger man’s leg.

“Hands up, Armie,” Poe smirked.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked, please comment and kudos! You can find me on Tumblr at womp-rat-fever! Hmu in my asks or whatever, I love getting feedback!


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